


won't bite my tongue off with a smile

by cloudings



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudings/pseuds/cloudings
Summary: Eddie lives and goes with the other Losers to the quarry.He's too preoccupied to warn them all against streptococcus, or something.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 101





	won't bite my tongue off with a smile

**Author's Note:**

> me? posting more than one fic in half a year? shut up....  
> IN OTHER NEWS... it's been almost one whole year since IT Chapter 2 came out and i wrote the let's hear it for my baby! series... omg. wrote this reallll quick to celebrate!

He’d almost died. 

Eddie had almost died.

Right fucking in front of him. On top of him. Almost splattered his innards all over him. Richie will never again in his  _ life  _ second-guess his instincts. 

He’d saved Eddie’s life. 

It rattles around in his head as they run through the collapsing build; one, two, three, four, five, six of them scuttling out, Richie right behind Eddie, not taking his eyes off of him. Not taking his hand off of him. He doesn’t care if Eddie thinks it weird, afterwards. Richie keeps one hand on the small of Eddie’s back as they squeeze out of the door and he doesn’t remove it even as the sunlight gleams upon their party and they turn to witness the toppling of their nightmares. 

It’s over, he tells himself. 

It’s done.

One, two, three, four, five, six. 

Beverly is crying, and Ben is hugging her, and he’s crying too. Mike is breathing so hard that Richie’s sure he’s going to have to have one of his micro-doses again soon, and Bill is rounding on him, hand on his shoulder, lips twitching, eyes wide on the structure. 

Richie is still touching Eddie. 

Eddie’s watching the pile of wood and bricks with shock taking form on his face with blown pupils and a dropped jaw, chest heaving, and Richie’s ears ringing, and he’s not sure if it’s from the sound of the house, the terror, the disbelief, or the love. It might be all of them. At least some of it is love. He’s sure. 

Richie thinks he’s crying, too, because everything is so fucking blurry, but that might be from the utter  _ state  _ of his glasses, and his eyes are stinging, but that might be from the fuck-ton of dust that just rose up into the atmosphere. 

His hand burns hot on Eddie’s back. Eddie’s back. He’s here. Fuck.

And that’s that.  _ It  _ is gone. They all made it. Bar Stanley. 

The quarry is further than Richie remembered it to be, though he supposes that that’s not really much to go on, considering he literally couldn’t remember going through puberty, only a couple of days ago. They get there and he feels sickly nostalgic. His eyes are stinging again. Eddie taps him on the shoulder before he can jump in, and they’re the only ones left to do it, now. 

He says, “You’re really gonna jump in with your glasses on?”

Though he’s been sharing his presence nonstop since the fucking thing tried to kill him, Richie chokes at the sound of his voice. 

“I don’t know if you noticed,” he says in return, sarcasm leaking through into his strained voice, because fuck  _ him  _ if he doesn’t try to hide his feelings, even now, “But I might need to buy some new ones, anyway.”

“Whose blood is that?” Eddie asks, stepping up by his side. His toes hang over the side of the cliff they’re about to launch from and Richie wants nothing more than to stay up here with him. He gestures slowly to Richie’s glasses. They’re cracked and stained red. He’s very close. 

Richie swallows. He gently places his fingers to Eddie’s arm, at the place where Richie had made the worst attempt at a bandage using his jacket. “Damn near cut your arm clean off. Woulda had to start calling you Jaime Lannister.”

Eddie laughs. He laughs at Richie’s stupid fucking reference and he  _ swears  _ that his heart is beating faster now that it had been when the Clown was coming right at him. 

“Of course you watch Game of Thrones,” he says, though he’s grinning. “It’s basically just porn.”

“You’ve never seen it?” he asks. “When we get out of here — out of Derry — I’m making it my personal mission to show you every goddamn season.”

Eddie’s smile grows softer. He tells him, “I’d like that.”

They jump down at the same time and, surprise, surprise, Eddie had been right in warning him about his glasses. They’re somewhere at the bottom of the damn quarry, now, and all of them are laughing about it. Their cheeks are soaked with the water of their childhoods mingled with their tears of pure relief. 

Richie can’t see (because he’s a fucking bat) but Eddie tells him that Beverly dove down to finally retrieve them, Ben with her to help. Mike and Bill are looking to the left of them. 

God, Richie wishes he had his glasses. Eddie’s close enough that he’s not completely blurry but there’s nothing that Richie wouldn’t do to see this in crisp HD. Eddie has droplets trickling down his skin and he keeps licking his lips, and his shirt is sticking  _ criminally  _ tight to his torso. Richie knows he’s staring. It’s because he’s alive. Oh, God, he’s alive. Really. 

“You’re alive,” Richie says to the side of Eddie’s head. His tone reeks of solace and his voice quivers pathetically. He gets quarry water all in his eyes when he reaches up to try and push back the tears with his thumbs. 

He hears Eddie reply with a quiet, “Rich?” and feels a gentle hand on his bicep. It makes him shake even more. He’s shaking so fucking much. So stupid. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells him, and he’s so fucking glad that the others can’t see them. “Holy shit. I’m so sorry. I just can’t — I can’t believe that you’re alive.”

“Me?” Eddie whispers, and Jesus, Jesus, he’s close, he’s comforting him, leaning in close only so that the others can’t hear them, surely. “We all almost died in there, Rich.”

“No.” Richie shakes his head, drops his hand from his face and honest to God startles when he sees how freaking close he actually  _ is.  _ “It’s different. I  _ saw you  _ dying, Eds. I  _ saw it.  _ If I hadn’t pulled you down —”

“Hey,” he interrupts. Thank God. His eyes are filled to the brim, from what Richie can make out through the blur of his own tears. But he’s wearing a smile. That sweet smile. “I’m okay. I’m here. You saved my life.”

Eddie is so beautiful. Richie nods. They missed out on so fucking much. And now the healing breach in the skin on Eddie’s cheek is stretched out so kindly for  _ him —  _ and his soft fingers stroke loving circles on Richie’s arm and— And? Nothing is clear in his head. Nothing. Nothing, except —

“I’m in love with you,” he tells him. On a whim. He will regret this. He does it anyway. Because of Eddie’s fucking doe eyes and the pure look in them that’s making Richie remember the first time that he ever looked into them. What was he? Twelve? Thirteen? No, younger, more naive, more innocent, more prone and susceptible to falling for this stunning, stunning, wonderful man, everything about him. He wishes it were more clear in his head. Oh, he wishes. But he thinks that he’s used up all the wishes in the world on this day. Because Eddie is still here. Standing in front of him. How is he standing in front of him? Richie can’t be this lucky.

Richie says it like a fucking loser, too. His voice cracks like he’s going through fucking puberty again (some sick irony, there) and the desperation in it is just sad. He says it like it’s been on the tip of his tongue for almost thirty years. Has it? He’s not sure. He’s just gotten him back. If he’d remembered this light, this angel (how could he have forgotten him? How?), then how could he not have gotten on the first flight to New York? Told him, then and there? How had he held back in the Jade of the Orient, he wonders, because now his tongue is loose and he wants to say it  _ all.  _

Every single tidbit about the man that has all flooded back to him at once. His flaws and his strengths and his eyes and his lips and the way that he looks at Richie, like he’s looking at him right now, and God, that  _ ass — _

“I’m in love with you,” he says again. “I guess that I have been since like, the very first time that I met you. I don’t know how you never saw it. Or maybe you did, and you tried to ignore it, I don’t know. Maybe I’m fucking everything up right now because I can’t keep my damn mouth shut. But fuck —” and his stupid voice breaks  _ again —  _ “Seeing you almost get fucking murked in there — holy fucking  _ shit —  _ I wanted to die, myself. And I’ve never fucking felt that way about  _ anyone  _ before. Nobody has ever done that to me. There’s a way that you, like, fucking, reach into my heart and grab it and twist it and I know that if you — If I lost you from my life again, I’d lose my damn mind.”

“Oh my God,” is Eddie’s delayed response. That’s it. Richie can’t make out what’s beneath the words. Disgust? No. Please. God, no. Richie doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stand it. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh my God.”

“Oh my God. I love you? Please say something.”

“Oh my God,” Eddie says. His voice is shaking, too. 

“Okay, please say anything other than oh my god.”

Eddie looks like he’s waiting for a punchline, and, for the first time in Richie’s life, he’s completely devoid of one. He almost fucking forgets that the rest of them —  _ one, two, three, four, five, six  _ — are all still around them, talking amongst themselves, laughing with relief. Richie can’t imagine laughing ever again in his life, which is, you know,  _ yikes, he’s a fucking comedian,  _ because he might as well have died inside that fucking cave system underneath the house if Eddie doesn’t —

“Rich,” Eddie says. He raises a hand and places it over his mouth like he doesn’t know what’ll come out of it next. His fingers move to the wound on his cheek that’ll definitely suffer from this nasty ass water. “Rich,” he says again. And then, “Oh my god, I have a wife.”

Richie feels his stomach churn. “Yeah. Yeah. God, sorry. I’m sorry, I just — You —”

“I don’t — Rich, do you — Do you know the, uh, the laws around divorce in New York?”

Richie blinks at him. “Sorry?”

“Uh, you — Uh.”

Richie’s not sure whether or not the new droplets on Eddie’s forehead are from the water they’re submerged in or if he’s suddenly become really,  _ really  _ sweaty. He doesn’t blame him if it’s the second one. Richie could probably make a whole fucking ocean with how much he’s sweating just from hearing the word  _ divorce. _

“Divorce?” he croaks. 

“Well, you — You told me that you loved me, so —”

“So fucking what, Eds, you’ve been sitting around on your ass and waiting for me to confess just for the right time to leave your wife?”

He watches Eddie’s face morph into a scowl as he tells him, “Well, I didn’t fucking remember who you were, asshole! I didn’t know you existed!”

“Uh, the Orient?”

“You’ve only just told me too, you dick!” 

“Actually, you haven’t even actually told me anything yet, so —”

Eddie grabs his face so hard that he pulls a bit of his hair out. But, you know, it was probably some of the grey ones anyway, and how could Richie complain about literally anything at all that exists on this divine earth when Eddie’s leaning in, and he’s pressing his lips against Richie’s, kissing him like he’s pretty sure this is only a marginally better way of drowning him than shoving his head underwater. Richie’s emulating a statue until Eddie pulls back from him for a moment, cheeks red as those fucking shorts he used to wear, and he demands, “Are you going to kiss me back or  _ what? _ ”

So Richie kisses him back, one hand lifted to grab hold of the man’s bloodied shirt. 

The other hand sticks out to his side and he flips off their friends,  _ one, two, three, four  _ of them, because they all start fucking wolf-whistling and clapping like it was a movie or something. 

Then he aims it at the sky because he’s sure that wherever the bastard is, Stanley’s watching him with a self-satisfied smirk plastered over his face, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on twitter @greyclouding!


End file.
